To Forget
by Oceansportrait
Summary: His touch demanded nothing, always gentle, never with an underlying thought. I was the one who took the initiative, touched him first, embraced him first, kissed him first. I used his feelings towards me to forget. ShinoguXHatsumi
1. To Forget 1

My eyes opened to darkness. Black shadows that engulfed my eyes to take me prisoner. The curtains tapped against the edge of the window, again and again as the wind tried to push it aside. As the darkness adjusted to create defined shapes, blocks of furniture and objects, I felt warmth pressing against my back. I stiffened, not recognizing the presence. Turning slightly, careful not to wake the other, I brushed my hand across the person's face.

A forehead, eyebrows…as I touched the closed eyelids, he moved. Because of the close proximity, I could see his eyes flutter open, his dark eyes, reflecting the small amount of light present in the room. He blinked several times, trying to ward off the sleep beckoning him. Sheets rustled beneath, and he brought his hand up to the side of my face. His hand was shaking.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

Silently, I wondered why he was the one to ask the question. I wasn't the one whose hand was shaking. But instead of saying my thoughts out loud, I nodded, wishing it wasn't so dark. His hand relaxed, drawing back. I heard him sigh, and run his fingers roughly through his hair to wake himself up. Lifting himself from the safeness of the bed, he straightened his bare back against the head board.

Silence, and silence. A void that stretched and flattened itself out to wrap around us. My head was still resting against the pillow, so I could no longer see him. I wondered what he was thinking. I wondered what we had done. I wondered, what I had done.

In the darkness, I couldn't recognize the image of the blonde haired boy with glasses drifting slowly past my mind. In the darkness, I couldn't remember his name. I tried to think, to remember, to recognize how important the person must have been. But the darkness pushed, harder and harder until it was too difficult to concentrate. I closed my eyes instead.

"Hatsumi….I'm sorry."

I kept my eyes closed.

"I didn't…it wasn't meant….to be like this." He touched my shoulder, shaking me as if I were asleep and needed to be woken. "Hatsumi. I'm sorry, I don't know what else to say."

He took my silence as revulsion at what had taken place. I wanted to say something, words of comfort, words of reassurance, anything. Anything other than the silence that spoke for me. I heard him quietly leave the bed, picking up his clothes strewn about on the floor along the way.

Light streamed into the room, and now I could clearly see his face. He looked over in my direction for a moment, his expression, broken. Empty. I didn't know what to say. He closed the door behind him, and with a soft click, I heard his soft footsteps fade.

I curled up in the bed, trying to keep the warmth of his fading presence for as long as I could. I'd hurt him. I hadn't meant to.

I'd taken advantage of his kindness. His touch demanded nothing, always gentle, never with an underlying thought. I was the one who took the initiative, touched him first, embraced him first, kissed him first. I used his feelings towards me to forget.

But if it was to forget, I'd forgotten for only too short of a time. The haziness of the memory of the scene was sharpening, and soon, the image would no longer be a blonde blur close together with a brown haired girl. It would only be too real again.

_"Hatsumi….I'm sorry."_

I pressed the sheet of fabric against my eyes. I could still see his dark eyes, reflecting the darkness of the room. Warm eyes silently asking why there were tears in my eyes.

_"Hatsumi….I'm sorry."_

Onii-chan……


	2. To Forget 2

This feeling, of wanting, and of wishing of not wanting. Of knowing no matter how many years would pass, or not pass, I would never see anything other than my role, my figure reflecting from her eyes. It just made me tired. Of life, of everything, of everyone, and myself.

I could never admit my feelings towards her outside of my mind, and never to the person herself.

Through the years her quiet strength had supported me, and through this strength I had been able to rise from the rumors and of the negativity that my adoptive parents had to go through, and of knowing the pain they endured to keep me.

I'd known for a long time my feelings for her were not of an innocent love that would be content with just being by her side, watching as she loved, and were loved. It was a love that constantly demanded attention, a voice persistently urging me in the back of my mind to tell her.

_Hatsumi. _

But to think it would come to this. I knew when she tensed as I mentioned Ryoki's name that something had happened between them. I knew. Yet when she kissed me, the thoughts faded, and the only thing real at that moment had been her arms pressing me further down onto the ground, and the warmth of her lips.

I'd taken advantage of her. Gave in to my feelings instead of considering hers. She was in no condition to….God, what have I done?

When I woke up to her hand touching the side of my face, her hand felt cold. I knew she felt at a loss of what had taken place, never meaning for things to have gone so far. And instead of comforting her, reassuring things would be all right….that I would never tell what happened between us to Ryoki, all I could do was avoid her gaze, apologizing. Over and over.

Her silence was unbearable. More so than if she had yelled at me, blamed me for what I'd led her to. I would have preferred the latter a thousand times over. Her silence was a soundless accusation, one I felt I'll never be able to pick myself up and walk away from. An accusation I'll never be able to make up for.

I couldn't go back to her now. I didn't have the courage to open the door again, of trying to think of the right words to say, if such words existed.

Closing the door to the bathroom, I locked the door. This barrier, felt as if it served to separate Hatsumi and I. With this, with what I did, I'd never have the right to be by her side. Even just as an older brother.

The cold shower, like ice needles, dug, further and further…my hand instinctively reached out to change the water temperature, but my grip on the lever loosened, and the ice water continued to run.

Murmurs, quiet voices I couldn't make into words. The water running, down over and around my ears further drowned out any parts of the conversation I might have been able to recognize otherwise.

"Hatsumi-chan, wait a se—"

Akane's raised voice, and the sound of the main door closing shut.

_Hatsumi._

I turned the lever off, sliding the sliding glass open, the material shaking from the sudden force. I had to talk to her. Even if I didn't know what to say, I couldn't let her leave like this. Hastily, sliding on a shirt and jeans, I unlocked the door. Water trailed behind me as my footsteps quickened. I heard Akane calling out when I left, but I didn't stop to give a reply.

_Hatsumi._

I didn't know what I'll say when I find her, but even if it's just to talk, I can't—

"Shinogu!"

"Asahi…"

She was waving from the stairway below, signaling she'd be here in a moment. I didn't have the time to wait. Any longer and I wouldn't be able to find Hatsumi—

_"I promise I won't tell anyone."_

Her shoulders, slightly shaking as she fought the tears arising. The image still remained in the back of my mind. I didn't know why she had felt the urge to cry from the conversation she had overheard between Azusa and I. She never gave an answer when I asked.

I felt the need to wait for her here, even as I felt Hatsumi's presence drift further away, my feet made no move to the elevator.


	3. To Forget 3

_"I didn't want to see you hurt."_

"Are you okay?"

I waved a hand across his face, trying to hold his attention. His physical body was here, close enough to touch if I reached, but his mind was drifting, in a place where I couldn't touch him. A place only Hatsumi held the key to.

"Did…did something happen?"

I knew the answer before I'd even asked. I'd seen him running after her, what more confirmation did I need? Why did I feel like I needed to hear the words come from him, listen as he admitted what I'd known since childhood. Feelings which had spread and begun to whither before my eyes, feelings I'd tried to shade my eyes from. I could have pretended not to see, as I always did—to let him catch up to her, to let him show her the expression he never showed me. I could have—

"It's nothing."

Looking up at him, his eyes refusing to meet with mine, and a part of me went numb with relief. As long as he denied his feelings for her, there would still be a chance. As long as his reassurances matched what I wished he'd truly meant, everything would be fine. As long as I never had to see him look at anyone else the way he looked at Hatsumi, I'd be fine.

I wondered when I had become so weak.

I remember, even now, so many years ago, his shoulders slightly hunched, playing with a toy train by himself in the corner of the class. The others had found out about him being adopted soon after the school year had started, and their conversations with him had grown further apart until it drifted into silence. I would be talking to friends, trying to ignore the silence of his presence, and yet my eyes always drifted back to him.

I followed him one day, curious as to where he was heading. After school, he always turned right once he was out of the school gates, whereas the rest turned left. The sound of his lone footsteps, and the keychain on his small backpack flapping against the fabric made him seem alone, more so than he was in class.

Trying to leave distance between so he wouldn't notice, I'd taken a few extra steps in an effort to keep from losing him when I lost my balance, falling onto the cement road with a thud. He had gazed curiously behind him, an amusing picture surely, with dust over the navy blue of my school uniform and a skinned knee, he turned, and came walking back. He bent over and held his hand out, concern spreading across his face, quietly asking if I was all right.

With a throbbing knee, I'd limped as I tried to keep pace with him. He explained that he had noticed me following him about five minutes into the walk outside the school gates.

"It was because—"

"Onii-chan!"

His face broke into a wide smile when he caught sight of the small girl whose hands waved enthusiastically, beckoning for him to come.

"Hatsumi!"

He'd run over to her, my presence a forgotten memory. Watching him laugh at something Hatsumi had said, I'd realized it was the first time I saw him act other than the quiet exterior he had shown in the classroom, in front of his classmates, in front o f me. He made no movement to resist as she extended her hand to hold his.

_"It was because you seemed so alone."_

Only once I had gotten to know them better did I realize, he was in love with her. He was never alone. He had Hatsumi. Even though it wasn't in the way that he wanted.

I wondered when I had become so weak.


	4. Chapter 4

I listened, to the pause, and then the sound of his bare feet fading. Pressing the side of my face deeper into the darkness of the pillow, I closed my eyes, trying to shield my ears and eyes of the echo, and of the nothingness that lay beyond the bed. I touched the white sheets. The fabric hadn't retained any of his warmth. With every step he took, the sheets cooled until it was as if he had never been here.

He had realized what a mistake this had been, just as I had.

I saw his face. Again and again within my mind. Burning, scarring his expression into the depths of my memory as he left the room. I brought a hand to the side of my face. The heat from his hand had faded long ago, to be left with the coldness of what I had done.

When I had kissed him, pulled him down to the ground, the wooden floor pressing against my knees, I saw the blonde-haired boy beneath my closed eyelids. Seeing Ryoki, embracing someone else, kissing her as he had me, had been my undoing. The rawness of the pain, combined with the relief and security I felt when I saw Onii-chan led to this. This awkwardness, this silence. This pain. His pain.

I couldn't stay here. This was his room, his memories, his life within these walls. Even within the darkness. Pulling back the sheets, my feet connected with the oak floor silently. Small bumps raised on my arm, as the curtain fluttered off the open window.

Pressing the fabric of the shirt and pants against my chest, I turned the doorknob. I winced as the light seeped in. Hearing the shower starting, I knew the meaning behind the action. He wanted for my touch, the impure reasons for something that was supposed to be pure, gone. As the water cleansed him, he could forget this day. And he could forget me.

I left the apartment. To clear my thoughts, to think of an explanation. To think of a way to make things right between us again. I heard Akane's voice from behind me but I avoided her questions, afraid she would figure out what had happened and be disgusted at what I had done to him.

My feet moved on its own. They were heading towards the stairs. His stairs. I couldn't. I tried to turn back, get away from the place, but they headed further in, until finally, they came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. His presence was there, strong, undeniable, and my eyes were drawn to him.

"What are you doing here?"

His voice, cold, and distant asked what I wanted to ask myself. He had in his right hand, a half-burnt cigarette, the smell of the smoke wafting, closing the distance between us. His hair seemed disheveled, and his face, tired. He was wearing different clothes than a few hours earlier, different than the clothes he had been wearing when I saw him with her. I silently wondered if it was a subtle message of what had occurred in the hour I hadn't seen him.

"I…."

I love this person. Even after knowing he slept with someone else, the feelings were still there. I had broken up with him, left distance, tried to erase these feelings, for my family, for the life I had known before I'd met him. But I couldn't go back to those days. There was only now, and only his reflection in my eyes.

Onii-chan—I'm sorry.

He dropped the remnants of the cigarette onto the ground, grinding it underneath his sole.

"If you have nothing to say, leave."

Onii-chan—

"Fine, I'll leave."

I grabbed his arm, as he tried to walk past. He tried to shrug off my grip but I held on.

Onii-chan—I'm sorry.


	5. Chapter 5

"I'm sorry."

I looked down at my hands folded beneath the café table. The swinging lamp overhead felt stifling, as if it would hold light to all corners of the booth, and secrets would no longer be so. Why was I here? Why had I let him take me here when I knew he wanted to be else where. He had wanted to search for Hatsumi, still did, and yet here he was, across from me, a coffee cup in hand.

He couldn't walk away. He couldn't leave me behind while I was like this. I knew, so why had I given in when he had asked if something was wrong. I couldn't meet his eyes, couldn't confess the truth to his concerned gaze. Instead, I kept my eyes on my hands.

But in the corner, of somewhere, within the shadows of my heart I knew things would end up this way, and had wanted things to end up so. I had wanted to take advantage of his kindness. The kindness Hatsumi was always benefiting from and using without a second thought. Even if that kindness was created out of pity, I wanted to accept it.

Because I loved him.

Because he wouldn't look at me otherwise.

My thoughts dissolved, like the condensed milk spooned into his coffee, as he rested his hand on my arm. I hadn't noticed that he had gotten out of his seat, and rounded the table to crouch beside me so our heads leveled. The coffee cup lay abandoned in the middle of the mosaic cloth. It was a slight shade lighter than it had been before, and heat rose from the quarter empty coffee.

His hand felt warm, even with a long sleeved shirt to part the contact.

"What's wrong?"

If I was Hatsumi, at that moment I could have leaned my head against his shoulder, and he would have embraced me in return. If I was Hatsumi, he wouldn't be here now out of obligation, but out of free will. If I was Hatsumi, I wouldn't have had to hold back my feelings for him.

But I wasn't her.

I moved my arm away from his touch.

"Asahi…"

I wasn't her.

I stood from my chair, avoiding his eyes as I said: "Look…i-it's nothing. I—"

He didn't seem convinced by my reply.

"If there was something though, you would tell me, right?"

"O-of course, that's what…friends are for."

Why was I always the one to push myself further into the ground? Why was I always the one to bring an end to a beginning that never started?

I knew the answers why.

Because it was him.

Because nothing had changed since that school day years ago.


	6. Chapter 6

"I thought you said it was over between us."

I pressed my cheek against the rough fabric of his jacket. He tensed beneath my touch, but I held on. Refusing to let go, because I felt afraid if I did, he would leave. I was afraid he would leave, and the distance between us would widen further and all that had been would become a faint memory to him.

I could still smell the cigarette on him. It reminded me of the first time I opened my heart enough to see him for anything other than the childhood nightmare he had been to me.

On these very same steps, he told me it was all right to have more confidence in myself. That wasn't a lie, was it?

I knew I had no right to be here. To be talking with him. After what I had done, the only right that became left was the one to never speak with him again. But just as he had told me to have more confidence in myself, I wanted to have the confidence now, to say what was on my mind.

"Ryoki, I…"

"_Are you okay?"_

No…..No…I squeezed my eyes shut. From Onii-chan, from the truth. But the darkness beneath my lids only aided in gathering together the pieces of his features. His hands that had hesitantly cupped the side of my face, his shoulders, white against the headboard of his room, his eyes…the dark eyes that had looked into me, pleading with me to forgive him for his weakness.

"I…."

"_Hatsumi…I'm sorry."_

It was like watching a movie fast-forwarded, all that had happened a blur except for the occasional flashes of identifiable color. My blue shirt, crumpled on the ground, my jeans, interwoven with his clothes into a heap at the edge of the bed. The white sheets of his bed dyed into shades of red and pink as the setting sun cast its shadow through the open window. The blackness of his hair as I ran my hand through the strands, pressing him down further onto the bed as I did so.

He had been tentative with his touches at first, almost as if he expected me to draw back at any moment. I should have stopped then, realized there was so much to lose. But instead, I had wrapped my arms around his neck, kissed him with the clumsiness of inexperience, drew him closer to me as if somehow the heat of his skin, and the warmth of his heart could somehow make everything right again.

I realized too late though, that I wasn't a child anymore. He couldn't just patch me up with a bandaid like he did back when we were still kids, and suddenly everything would be okay. This wasn't a matter of running over to him crying over a scraped knee. This wasn't that kind of level of hurt. It was so much more.

"I…"

"_I didn't…it wasn't meant….to be like this."_

"I'm so sorry Ryoki, I---"

"_Hatsumi…I'm sorry."_

There was nothing to forgive, because it had all been my doing.


	7. Chapter 7

He suddenly drew me into his arms. I couldn't breathe. His thick winter jacket muted the sound of his beating heart. I wondered if his was thudding as hard as mine.

He hadn't let me finish my sentence. Did he know? Had he found out somehow? Had my voice been shaking? Was it my eyes? Was it—

"All you have to say…is that you love me." He whispered into my hair. "…Nothing happened between me and her."

I wanted to cry then.

My silence made him squeeze me even harder. I couldn't speak. There were no words. Just tears.

I knew he was waiting.

Waiting for the words, waiting for love, waiting for us.

What have I done.

What have I done.

I…can't tell him. I can never tell him. Of the words of love, or of what happened tonight. What had made me think I could? He'd never forgive me, he'd never—I…can't—

"Hatsumi…Hatsumi…"

I wanted to kiss him then. Whisper to him that I loved him, and that everything could go back to the way they were. But I had shattered that dream. With the sheets stained with the colors of sunset, and the black-haired boy with tears in his eyes, I had broken, smashed, destroyed, the door that could have made that dream a reality.

And all that was left was this.

How could I have been foolish enough to think I could turn back time.

"…I-I have to go."

I brought my hands up to his chest, and gently tried to push him away.

He held on, just as I had when he tried to pull away. He embraced me again, pressing his cheek against my hair. I could feel his soft breath, and the trail of white smoke.

"You don't mean that…it's just, there's so much going on…you…you told me you'd choose me over everyone else."

"Please…just let me go."


End file.
